111–120 of 180 posts
This article is largely based on the claims of Bartolome de Las Casas, an activist from the time of Conquistadors. Some scholars believe thathe wildly exaggerated the crimes in order to convince the Spanish and other governments to intervene.
Has anyone travelled to both Spain and Latin America? Spaniards are white. Latins have on average a mixed colour. So it's clear that extermination did not take place... there.
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I think you guys have fallen off in the weeds somewhere. The point wasn't that somehow Europeans were "right" in the way they treated the natives, any more than the natives were "right". My thesis is, given any two sufficiently distant cultures, any interaction between them, no matter how principled, will be traumatic to the lesser culture. That doesn't mean I approve of the side-effects of interaction, or that I'm a…
What, quantitatively, makes one culture "greater" than another?
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What's your answer to my question?
It's not a sensible question so I can't answer it. I just dont think that what happened to the Native Americans was right, it was genocide, and anything positive that came out of it doesnt excuse it.
Question to HN readers who are sympathetic with this article: If you could wave a magic wand and "undo" all that was done, would you do so? So imagine all those who perished in the 1500's would be revived from the dead and restored to their ancestral lands, all those living in the Americas now would be sent back to England, Ireland, China, etc, with a one way ticket and $10K in cash to start a new life. Would you wav…
It would have almost no effect. Unless the Americas were completely isolated from Eurasia, everyone would have died anyway. The Americas were not conquered by force of arms, but by disease. A common pattern: send an expedition, which discovers cities, towns and gardens. Send another expedition years later: find nothing. I highly recommend the book 1491, which is a great historical account. There was absolutely nothin…
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This is a false dichotomy. It would have been quite possible to have had peaceful coexistence with the natives, and to slowly assimilate the natives into American society. In fact on a smaller scale that actually happened in a lot of places. Many early settlements had natives living and trading and working in there on a more or less equal footing as whites. In fact it would have been probably more beneficial economic…
I used to think the same thing, but I now believe that is wishful thinking. The Europeans had 10,000 of cultural and genetic adaptation to high density, agricultural based living. The natives lived a fundamentally different way of life that required far less population density. Like the Navi in Avatar, most natives would rather fight and die than give up their ancestral ways. And even if they had wanted to assimilate…
Of course some natives were hunter gatherers and they would have to change their lifestyles, so I am sure there would be some battles, but if the hunter gatherers had an option to assimilate, they would not fight to the death either, they would eventually see that there is no way out after losing a couple of battles. So there may be some war but there would not be genocide. As it happened, they only fought to the death because they knew there wasn't another option.
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It's not a sensible question so I can't answer it. I just dont think that what happened to the Native Americans was right, it was genocide, and anything positive that came out of it doesnt excuse it.
Let's try a similar, more realistic question. It's 2050. The U.S. has run out of oil, it only has enough to run farm equipment and food shipment trucks for another year. There is hope of converting everything to nuclear/electric power, but that will take a decade. In the meantime, the entire population, including your friends and family, face hunger or starvation. Nigeria and Venezuela have oil, but refuse to sell it…
And how does that scenario compare to the invasion of the United States in the 1500s?
It wasnt invaded to save the population of Europe.
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Let's try a similar, more realistic question. It's 2050. The U.S. has run out of oil, it only has enough to run farm equipment and food shipment trucks for another year. There is hope of converting everything to nuclear/electric power, but that will take a decade. In the meantime, the entire population, including your friends and family, face hunger or starvation. Nigeria and Venezuela have oil, but refuse to sell it…
Why dont they want to sell it? And how does that scenario compare to the invasion of the United States in the 1500s? It wasnt invaded to save the population of Europe.
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Why dont they want to sell it? And how does that scenario compare to the invasion of the United States in the 1500s? It wasnt invaded to save the population of Europe.
Americans have no goods that are as valuable to them as oil.
American pharmaceutical companies have this medicine, and they are operating in one of the most profitable industries that have ever existed.
Africans have no goods that are as valuable to them as medicine. Should African countries invade America to get this medicine?
I recommend getting over it. You are almost certainly the descendants murderers and conquerors. http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7819&... That's just how humans roll. Western Europe had lots of problems, but countries that operate in the European tradition are better places to live. (At least, when you look at the immigration patterns between third-world and first-world countries, it's clear that fi…
I'd like to think modern man is a better class of humans than their murderously genocidal ancestors. With so many of the comments seemingly endorsing manifest destiny on the part of "civilized" people, I'm beginning to reconsider this opinion.
"I'd like that.. but that shit ain't the truth."
Other than merely agreeing with the commentor on this aspect of human nature, I do have a point. I believe to deny the brutality in our nature is extremely dangerous.
I suggest the whole point of civilization is to recognize the destructive potential in us all and to regulate it.
Granted, you may be right. However, the consequence of putting in unnecessary protections against destruction are much more mild than the converse case.